CEO Says Sailing Website Smeared Him

SAN DIEGO (CN) – The owners of sailinganarchy.com, the self-proclaimed “largest sailing site on the net,” defamed a CEO and philanthropist by calling him a “grifter” and a “white collar criminal who stole millions,” the businessman claims in Superior Court. He describes the website as “the National Enquirer of the sailing world.”

Daniel M. Meyers, the CEO of an unnamed publicly traded company and a passionate sailor, claims his financial success drew the attention of Scot Tempesta and Alan Block who, through their Sailing Anarchy website, embarked on a “baseless and mean-spirited smear campaign.” Meyers says the information on Sailing Anarchy’s website “consists of sensationalized, attacking and defamatory ‘stories’ about people in the sailing world.” The stories focused on personal attacks of sailors and their families and are “tabloid journalism at its worst,” he claims. Meyers, who also serves on the board of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and is an active member of charities, says Sailing Anarchy tried to “persuade the public and certain individuals that [he] is a con artist who has stolen millions of dollars from people.” Meyers says he has “never stolen anything, let alone millions,” and demands general, special and punitive damages from Sailing Anarchy, Tempesta and Block for libel and slander. The CEO is represented by Barry Langberg with Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck of Los Angeles.